leet, saving only persons condemned for high treason. It is
one of the ironies of history that on the first pages of its annals the
beautiful new world is offered to the criminals of Europe.

During the winter that followed, John Cabot was the hero of the hour.
Busy preparations went on for a new voyage. Letters patent were issued
giving Cabot power to take any six ships that he liked from the ports
of the kingdom, paying to their owners the same price only as if taken
for the king's service. The 'Grand Admiral' became a person of high
importance. On one friend he conferred the sovereignty of an island; to
others he made lavish promises; certain poor friars who offered to
embark on his coming voyage were to be bishops over the heathen of the
new land. Even the merchants of London ventured to send out goods for
trade, and brought to Cabot 'coarse cloth, caps, laces, points, and
other trifles.'

The second expedition sailed from the port of Bristol in May of 1498.
John Cabot and his son Sebastian were in command; of the younger
brothers we hear no more. But the high hopes of the voyagers were
doomed to disappointment. On arriving at the coast of America Cabot's
ships seem first to have turned towards the north. The fatal idea, that
the empires of Asia might be reached through the northern seas already
asserted its sway. The search for a north-west passage, that
will-o'-the-wisp of three centuries, had already begun. Many years
later Sebastian Cabot related to a friend at Seville some details
regarding this unfortunate attempt of his father to reach the spice
islands of the East. The fleet, he said, with its three hundred men,
first directed its course so far to the north that, even in the month
of July, monstrous heaps of ice were found floating on the sea. 'There
was,' so Sebastian told his friend, 'in a manner, continual daylight.'
The forbidding aspect of the coast, the bitter cold of the northern
seas, and the boundless extent of the silent drifting ice, chilled the
hopes of the explorers. They turned towards the south. Day after day,
week after week, they skirted the coast of North America. If we may
believe Sebastian's friend, they reached a point as far south as
Gibraltar in Europe. No more was there ice. The cold of Labrador
changed to soft breezes from the sanded coast of Carolina and from the
mild waters of the Gulf Stream. But of the fabled empires of Cathay and
Cipango, and the 'towns and castles' over which